Why the Pearl Harbor battleships were not preserved

Was there a serious effort to preserve a Pearl Harbor battleship as a museum ship?

There was some consideration, but the ships seemed obsolete rather than historic and their preservation cost was hard to justify beside newer vessels.

The decision turned on generational distance and cost rather than a lack of wartime significance. Immediately after the war, the Pearl Harbor veterans were old ships beside a large fleet of newer construction. Institutions tend to recognize historical rarity only after the technology has receded from living operational memory. By then, scrapping decisions are often irreversible, as the loss of Britain's battleships also shows.